lists are cool; i think people like lists. it’s so direct and clear. here are my 8 lessons of 2011!
Be true to yourself. You’re not being nice to yourself if you’re too nice to others. You’re so afraid of upsetting people, so afraid of stepping on people’s toes that you change the way you think and change the way you speak. As they say, don’t let your environment shape who you are; let who you are shape your environment.
Believe in yourself. You can do good and suffer for it. You can speak out of love and be misunderstood because of it. Let them call you arrogant. Let them call you prideful. Let them call you whatever they want; only answer to yourself to the ones that are true, and learn in humility. Woe to you when all men speak well of you (Lk 6:26)
Always listen to counsel, but test everything against the Word. Seek wisdom and counsel from those you trust and respect, but at the end of the day, the people who know you best are God and yourself.
Gentleness is true strength. Nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing is so gentle as real strength – St. Francis de Sales. Gentleness is recognizing the depravity of man, our potential to harm through our thoughts, words and our actions and instead choosing to potentiate love to this hurting world with kindness, meekness, and understanding. We touch to heal, we speak to comfort, we encourage to edify. To be gentle is not to be weak, it’s choosing to remain powerful yet under control so that we can communicate love, hope, peace, and joy.
Be thankful for everything. Seasons come and seasons go. People come and people go. You only have this life, so make every moment worth your time. Be thankful for what you have, but continue to hope for greater things. Cherish those who love you, they remind you what you’re living for. Bless those who don’t, they tell you what you’re looking for.
Develop an obsessive compulsive disorder to bless. Be a blessing to others, no matter what happens. It’s gonna be tiring. It’s gonna take perseverance. People will take you for granted. You’re gonna wanna quit after a week. But God will take care of you, He promised. If you’re living and you’re not making someone else’s life better, you’re wasting your time. Be obsessed about doing good to others. Be obsessed about giving your friends a better day. Be obsessed about making others smile 
Your mentality is the strongest determinant of your reality. Your perception of people/situations has the greatest impact on the direction of your life. Like those once popular ‘choose your own adventure’ books, your life is also a story; but unlike them, it’s your story. You’re not choosing for the character in the book anymore, but yourself. Whether you adopt the glass-half-empty or glass-half-full mentality will dictate your perception of reality around you. They say pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy and I think there’s some truth to that. If somebody buys you something, there are really only 2 ways to look at it: 1) this person means well, 2) this person has ulterior motives. Your mentality decides between trust/mistrust, faith/doubt, sincerity/mockery, reality/travesty. Who do you trust?
“We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy” – Walter Anderson
Hope is the most resilient persistent force in man. It’s the hardest thing to kill…like multi-drug resistant bacteria, it refuses to die. Mad persistence. Respect.
In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins. Not through strength, but through persistence. - HJ Brown
To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. - Leo Buscaglia
Love comes to those who still hope even though they’ve been disappointed, to those who still believe even though they’ve been betrayed, to those who still love even though they’ve been hurt before.
Merry Christmas!
